Book Blogger Hop | Multiple Narrators

Welcome to my foray into the Book Bloggers Hop, where we have a question set each weekend. I’ve adopted it mainly for the last Monday of the month, or when I’m stuck for a subject. This week…

How do you feel about books with multiple narrators?

As long as the multiple narrator point of view is well done, that’s fine. I don’t mind switching between characters when we’re involved with them, but I do get a little confused sometimes when we switch to a different time/place and person. Remembering, oh yes, we were here three days ago, and I need to remember who all these people are, can be a pain.

But I’m going to be interested in everyone else’s answers, because I’m using multiple narrators in my rewrite of The Perihelix. Each scene takes a specific character’s POV, the shift depending on … things. I hope it will read better than before when I used an impersonal third person narrator – it’s still third person, but from one person’s point of view at a time.

By the way, I finally got around to installing Yoast SEO plug-in yesterday. I’ve been saying I was going to do it for at least one year (and maybe it’s now two). I’ll let you know in a few weeks whether I think it makes any difference.

4 thoughts on “Book Blogger Hop | Multiple Narrators”

I’m with you. Multiple narrators can be very confusing if there are too many and if there are too many. it’s also very confusing from a reader’s perspective let alone the writer’s. But I’m sure it will work if you have the patience.

I’m with Kim–multiple narrators requires extra care. But being 3rd person, I think, makes it easier to keep them in order, and restricting to one POV at a time (instead of an omniscient narrator) I think makes much more sense, and will prevent head-hopping. Currently listening to an audio book that does this, and handles it well, even without the visual cues you get on paper, so I think it’s perfectly workable.

I do enjoy multiple POVs but limited to a small number. And the transitions need to be careful. The advantage is that the reader can see things from different perspectives which can change the understanding. I think the book Gone Girl got writers thinking more about writing from different POVs. Do it!

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